


You were never gone

by silverisararermetalthangold



Series: I'll walk through the fire to find my way back to you [6]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Clary Fray, BAMF Isabelle Lightwood, BAMF Simon Lewis, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Crying, Daylighter Simon Lewis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Hurt Alec Lightwood, F/M, Hurt Alec Lightwood, Hurt Isabelle Lightwood, Hurt Magnus Bane, Hurt Simon Lewis, Injury Recovery, Killing, M/M, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Mundane Simon Lewis, Okay I'll stop now, Parent-Child Relationship, Protective Alec Lightwood, Protective Isabelle Lightwood, Psychological Trauma, Sad Clary, Sad Magnus, Supportive Magnus Bane, death death death, everyone is traumatized yay, traumatized alec, traumatized isabelle Lightwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 02:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19039501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverisararermetalthangold/pseuds/silverisararermetalthangold
Summary: After a moment, her brother asked her:What would have happened if Valentine had brought you up along with me? Would you have loved me?"When Clary didn’t answer, Jonathan lowered his head with a pained expression and then whispered:"Do you think you can forgive me for the things I’ve done? Do you think the angels are capable of forgiveness? Especially for someone like me?"The squad met their final challenges in Edom and reunited with their loved ones but is it really ended? Jonathan had close the rift between worlds, so they're trapped in Hell.They will need another way, will they find it?





	You were never gone

**Author's Note:**

> I'M BACK IN TOWN Y'ALL  
> sorry for the delay, let's cut immediately to the business, you've waited long enough my disciples:
> 
> So, the squad is in front of Jonathan's castle, ready to enter, save Magnus, Luke, Raphael and put an end on this war once and for all.
> 
> Will they be able to do it? How? Will everyone survive?
> 
>  
> 
> the song that inspired this chapter is "You were never gone" by Hannah Ellis because well, it's perfect u.u  
> Hope you enjoy this monster of 17k angels see you in the notes below! 💖

 

 

 

 

 

Alec and the others, all dressed with the stolen gears, rolled down the hill and walked until they were in front of the castle with all the Endarkened pacing around. 

“Okay walk through them and don’t think about anything, don’t throw glances or show weapons, we need to become like them” 

The squad nodded at Alec, raised their hood onto their heads and went into the mission. 

As they got closer to the gates, Clary could see the intricate design carved into the material, with little stars scattered all around the design. 

The morgenstern’s symbol. This was Jonathan’s castle for sure. 

Isabelle casted a glance around her without moving her face, her whip vibrating on her wrist as if it could feel the danger surrounding them; Alec leaded them, two arrows tucked into his sleeves in case of necessity while Jace was behind him, heavenly fire and sword hidden like his parabatai. 

Simon looked at the castle from outside and huffed a silence laugh; it was exactly like he imagined it, it was the worldwide known classic picture of the demon castle, the bad witch trapped with a spell. 

They passed the gates, slightly opened and went inside; they found themselves into a small hall with giant dark wood doors in front of them; Clary glanced at the others, now with weapons in hands, and nodded, putting her tiny gloved hands on the doorknobs of the doors, opening them wide open. 

They entered the room – more bright - slowly and careful, Isabelle’s whip brightening the dark, Alec’s bow ready to shoot, Jace’s fingertips golden. 

They were standing in an enormous room, the size of the inside of the Accords Hall, the room that Clary just seen once in her life; it was beautiful, she remembered, bright white marble and glass as ceiling. 

The room seemed empty. “There’s no one here” 

“Well, someone was here for sure, look” Simon pointed his finger towards a point in front of him; opposite them, two marvelous white golden thrones stood like statues, on the left one, Jonathan’s box from when he was a baby stood. 

“Jonathan” 

“And the other throne?” Simon furrowed his brow questioning Jace. 

“I don’t know, Lilith maybe” Jace answered even if Clary noticed the quick glance he threw at her. 

At their sides, two massive double spiral stone staircases led upward, two sets of stairs linked by a hallway; on either side a stone balustrade had been built, with the Morgenstern’s symbol carved into it. 

Even on the floor and on the ceiling stood the symbol, it was everywhere. 

Clary felt like suffocating. 

“Okay, me, Simon and Isabelle are going to take the right staircase, you two try to call the bitch and try to lock him in this room, give us time to find them” Alec took out another angelic sword, marking it and then securing it into his belt. 

They all looked at each other and Clary could have felt that they didn’t want to move because it could have been the last time they they would have seen each other; because Jonathan was waiting for them and he could have killed them in a second. 

Alec, Isabelle and Simon went upstairs and with one final look, they disappeared. 

 

  

 **I felt an empty space**  

 **Never could explain**  

 **Like you were erased**  

 **Never could replace**  

 **Now it's so clear**  

 **With you right here**  

 

  

  _“This is your father, he died in the war” Jocelyn was holding a five years old Clary in her arms, her shirt completely covered in different acrylic colors._  

 _“_ _Wh_ _y can’t he come back? Doesn't he love me?”_ _the red headed kid pouted, looking at her mother with her big green eyes._  

 _“Oh_ _honey_ _, he...he l_ _oved_ _you_ _a l_ _ot_ _”_  

 

That was the lie her mother always told to her for her entire life; that her father was a soldier, that he died in the war, that he loved her. 

And Clary believed her, even if she had strange dreams of a bald man, or a tower with a man trapped there surrounded by fire, screaming her name. 

She believed her mother; for years, she missed her father, especially when she looked at other children playing with their own dad at the park. 

Somehow, she always felt an empty space in her tiny heart that for years she couldn’t explain, she knew it was for her father but the argument, with her mother, was surrounded by mystery; Jocelyn never gave further information on how they met, how they fell in love, where they lived before New York. 

Clary always felt like her father had been erased and closed into a door that she was forbidden and unable to open until two events changed everything: the day Luke Garroway, an old friend of her mother, appeared on the doorstep and the day she discovered about the shadow world. 

Clary instantly liked the guy, he was smart and funny and strong, so strong that he could pull her up onto every toy in the park like she was a feather. 

One day she realized that Luke had filled the space in her now grown heart. 

 

Clary took a deep breath and drew her stele out, the tip piercing her skin with the rune that connected her to Jonathan. 

 _I’m here dearest brother, let’s talk._  

 

Less than five minutes later, Jonathan appeared on the hallway connecting the two stairs, smiling like a feline. 

“My dear sister, I’ve been waiting for you” he smirked like a predator ready to kill his prey. 

 

“Let’s talk” 

  

  

 **Like you were never gone**  

 **Picked up where we left off**  

 **Like you were never gone**  

 

  

Luke woke up, hearing some Endarkened talking about Magnus. 

“The lord has spoken, they arrived: he gave the command to kill the warlock” 

Luke widened his eyes, fully awake now, and rose to his feet; his hands tight in fists punching hard the door.  

“You can’t do that! Magnus! MAG-” Luke was interrupted has the door opened violently; a second later, his face was touching the floor under him, blood dripping from his nose. 

“Shut up wolf, or you’ll have the same ending” 

Luke stood silent until the Endarkened turned and almost closed the door; he got up again and stumbled to the door, determinate and bravely, screaming Alec’s name. 

The two endarkened took him by the collar and threw him to the floor, giving him a few punches to let him stay still. 

He hoped to have given Magnus more time, essential for saving him. 

 

He sat up, tasting the iron on his lips. 

They said that they arrived and he had no doubts that they intended Clary and the others; the squad always where they weren’t supposed to be, united by love. 

He smiled and then rolled to Raphael, changing his bandages cut from his almost nonexistent anymore shirt. 

Raphael had his eyelids half dropped most of the time, and Luke knew it wasn’t a good sign; maybe now that the squad has arrived, they would have found a way to get back and save him. 

 

He hoped this even for another reason: he would have seen Maryse again. 

He huffed a grin, his eyes finding their light again in the dark. 

In all his life he has seen things that most people wouldn’t never even imagine, but the most surprising thing he lived was falling in love with Maryse Lightwood, the woman that fought against him in the council and got exiled to New York with her children, now grown up warriors that were nothing like them. 

Or maybe, they grown into the better part of their parents. 

 

He thought of the night they spent eating on the grass like teenagers, laughing and talking about their lives, about what they were going through: Maryse and her deruned process and Luke with his dismissal at the policy. 

About their children – where Maryse literally glowed talking about how stupid she has been towards Alec and Magnus, and how, since she has been away from the Shadowhunter world, she has changed into a better mother and mother in law for them – then she rattled about how pride she was of Isabelle and her hard work in the forensic field. 

Luke had just listened to her and then went on telling stories about little Clary and her crayons all over his reports when she was like six or seven, Maryse’s laugh brightened Luke entire soul that night. 

When he got home, he realized that he was in love. 

 

He thought about the cinema date where they watched a comic movie, and in the middle of it, held hands; two hours later they had kissed for the first time on the doorstep of Maryse’s apartment. 

He remembered a week later, the soft texture of her dark hair between his fingers, the marks on her porcelain skin, far away memories in the wolf’s life, he reminded the lavender sheets wrapped around their bodies as they became one and his heart feeling at peace for the first time in a long time as she fell asleep in his arms, her back a sinuous line under the moon’s light. 

 

That night, a thought came to his mind, but he threw it in a corner of his mind. 

Now he promised to himself that, if he would have got out from here, he would have picked up right where he left off. 

 

  

  

 **You were always coming home**  

 **Yeah you were always close**  

 **Like you were never gone**  

 **You were never gone**  

 **You were never gone**  

 

 

Alec, Simon and Isabelle continued to walk through hallways, killing Asmodei along the way. 

Every door they knocked off was empty, and the more they walked through the castle, the more Asmodei they encountered. 

“The Asmodei are increasing Alec, I think we’re close” they rounded a wall, finding a group of Endarkened walking opposite them; both of them stood there watching each other for a second until they drew out their swords to fight, Alec’s five incendiary arrows stopping their movements even before they could do a mere step. 

They advanced, wall after wall, door after door, hallway after hallway; the smell of blood was being more and more persistent as they advanced into the depths of the castle, closer and closer to Luke, Raphael and Magnus even if they didn’t know. 

The more they walked, the more Endarkened and Asmodei they met and killed but for every monster they slaughtered, twice more popped up until they were reduced to running, screaming for the downworlders’ names. 

  

  

 **Now it's bare to me**  

 **You left the key**  

 **Now promise me**  

 **You will never leave**  

 **Time slipped away**  

 **We stayed the same**  

 

  

While they fought and run, Isabelle could feel they were close; that a few hallways and they would have find them thanks to their screams. 

She let herself thinking of Raphael, her ex something: she thought of how Raphael had been the key to  _see_ Simon, her actual boyfriend. 

Raphael had been the passage she needed to live to see some things clear, to learn new things about herself she didn’t know, like love. 

She always believed that it didn’t existed someone that could have loved her, she was too much for everybody. 

And then came the realization that Simon has always been there, even when she didn’t see him. 

Time had slipped away from their hands and in a bat of their eyes two years had passed since they met; they were always the same people, but grown up and more mature. 

Ready for each other. 

She bat her lighting whip against the walls so hard that some pieces crumbled above the flying demons, blocking them and permitting the squad to gain some time to find them. 

They run away, knocking down some doors and continuing to scream their friends’ names until they heard something back: Luke’s voice. 

They looked at each other and disappeared into another hallway as hordes of Asmodei began their hunt towards them. 

 

  

 **Like you were never gone**  

 **Picked up where we left off**  

 **Like you were never gone**  

 

  

They entered another dark hallway filled with dust and dim light, Luke’s voice in the air. 

Alec stopped and loaded his bow with five arrows and then turned his head behind him “Look at these doors, I’ll try to keep them away as long as possible” 

The couple nodded and began knocking some doors down; Alec, with his face covered in blood, Icore and dust, raised his bow, his hazel eyes burning with rage. 

“Come on motherfuckers, come at me” he killed one after the other, sometimes using even his sword in quick and lethal movements. 

His heart beating fast as the thought of having Magnus close came to his mind: he had been taken just a week after they got back together, their life had been ripped away from them just in the moment where they were beginning to talk about their future. 

Just when Alec had decided to take a step forward. 

The moment after, Magnus was in Hell and Alec didn’t have a way to get him back; But Alec never felt he was gone, he thought sometimes he could have lost Magnus forever but deep down he knew, in his heart, that Magnus was just far away, not gone. 

Alec was close to see him again after weeks, and Hell be damned, he would have destroyed Edom if it meant finding his lover. 

 

He swore, in the middle of slaughtering Asmodei around him, that the moment they would have find each other and got back to New York he would have took that step forward the first moment of peace they would have had. 

  

 

 **You were always coming home**  

 **Yeah you were always close**  

 **Like you were never gone**  

  

  

Isabelle and Simon reached the last door at the end of the hallway while Alec stayed a few meters back to fight the last five demons with his beloved arrows. 

“LUKE? MAGNUS? RAPHAEL? ARE YOU HERE?” Isabelle screamed throwing a punch to the door; after a second, Luke’s voice answered back. 

“Isabelle? Isabelle! We’re here! Thank the angel”  

“Stay back Luke!” the lightwood looked at the door, trying to open it and then noticing the lock rune on the doorknob. 

“It’s locked with a rune” Isabelle hissed nervously, one of her hand already at her belt taking out her Steele. 

“Okay I’m gonna unlock it and then you open it with your vampire strength okay? Luke hold on!” 

Isabelle unlocked the door and left the spot to let Simon open it; they entered and were instantly wrapped in the wolf arms’ who sighed deeply, relieved to finally see them, alive. 

“By the angel Raphael!” Isabelle run to the vampire laying in a pool of his own blood, almost dead. 

“We’re here, we’re gonna take you home and cure you okay? Hold on” Simon noticed how a second later Isabelle’s hands and gear were covered in blood. 

Simon looked better at Raphael and gasped, he was laying in a pool of his own blood with his throat ripped open. 

  

  

 **You were never gone**  

 **You were never gone**  

 

 

 A moment later a breathless Alec came behind Simon, making his way through the chaos to see Magnus. 

“Magnus-!” his eyes were sparkling with hope and anxiety and for the first time in days, Alec was smiling because he was about to see Magnus again. 

Only that it didn’t happen because Magnus wasn’t there; in a second his smile shattered and his eyes from hope changed to panic. 

“Where is Magnus? Why he’s not there-?” 

“Jonathan took him after what you did with the fire, he said he would have killed him the second you walked into this castle” 

“no no NO NO” Alec flew out of the room, seeing that another horde of demons were coming closer. 

“Fuck fuck okay, WHERE DID HE TAKE HIM? DO YOU KNOW?” Alec shot an explosive arrow and then came into the room again, “He talked about a door with a rune carved on the whole wood“ 

“Okay runed door, got it-“suddenly a scream made their blood freeze and their mouths silent. 

It was Magnus. 

Alec could have recognized that voice everywhere. 

The hunter run out of the door trying to understand from where the scream came. 

“Uh guys, I think we should run, and fast” Simon’s eyes were glued behind Alec, one of his arms around Luke’s waist. 

Isabelle reached her brother and boyfriend with Raphael, bandaged as better as she could. 

Alec took out five explosive arrow and load them into his bow. 

“Run and find the room, scream my name when you find it, I’ll try to be behind you” Simon and Isabelle nodded beginning to run – as best as they could – behind Alec, Isabelle trying to help her brother along the way with her shining whip. 

Alec was shooting arrows nonstop, making an Asmodeo falling after the other but it seems like that they were infinite. 

Simon and Isabelle, along with Luke and Raphael in their arms, ran faster trying desperately to find Magnus before it was too late. 

After a few minutes they rounded a hallway and found another horde of Asmodei coming in their opposite direction. 

“Damn it! Alec there’s another horde coming here!” Alec reached his sister with short breath, his face and body covered in blood, sweat, Icore and dust, ONly his hazel eyes perfectly visible in all the dirty on his face. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m so fucking done with this realm” Isabelle looked at him a bit shocked and amused; If Alec was swearing, he was really angry and pissed, he never swears, except when he was in panic and completely done. 

“I’m done playing nice, I’ll slay every fucking Asmodeo in this stupid castle” Alec drove out his two long seraph blades and then threw himself into the horde; every move lethal, precise and perfect, his whole body moving fast, with cold movements powered by rage and frustration. 

It was a mesmerizing sight; it was like seeing a vengeful angel ripping away every single thing that stood in his way. 

 

  

Simon and Izzy stopped watching Alec, turned away and ran into a path between two hallways, screaming for Magnus’ name when they heard his voice. 

They reached the door as fast as they could, knocking violently at the it, “Magnus! Magnus I’m Izzy, hold on!” the girl looked at the door and chewed her low lip. 

“We need to do like before Simon”  

“Okay, we need to lay them down first” Isabelle nodded laying Raphael on the floor gently next to Luke, she checked the hallway for demons and then took her stele out and drew an unlocking rune on the pommel; after that, Simon’s strength opened the heavy door. 

Magnus’ cat eyes shining in the dark towards them. 

“Alec, we found him!” 

  

 **You were never gone**  

 **No, you were never gone**  

 **No, you were never gone**  

 

  

As Alec heard his sister, he decided to shoot both incendiary and explosive arrows, destroying every Asmodeo in his way, resulting in an enormous blast of fire, blood and pieces of rock from the walls. 

He ran towards his sister and Simon, almost tripping on his own feet. 

When he reached the door, he moved between the couple and before Magnus could finish saying his name, he cupped his cheeks in his hands and kissed him hard. 

Alec began crying together with Magnus as they kissed; they both thought that they would have never seen each other again, that one of them could have been already dead, that they would have never kiss the other never again. 

They continued to kiss each other, pouring into it every feeling they bottled up in these weeks, every fear, every spark of hope, every tear they shared in these long nights apart. 

They moved their lips against the other, sometimes breaking the kiss just to catch a breath and then immediately reuniting as if being separated made them hard to breathe. 

Alec tightened his grip on Magnus’ cheeks, deepening the kiss, wanting to feeling every fiber of Magnus, wanting to be one with him even if the world outside the room was falling apart. 

After a long moment they broke the kiss and stood there, breathing each other’s air with their lips brushing and opened and swollen and eyes locked in one another; on both their faces, tears pouring down. 

They closed their eyes and hugged each other, Magnus burying his face in the crook of Alec’s neck and his arms wrapping his back as much as he could with handcuffs on. 

  

  

 **You were always coming home**  

 **You were always close**  

 **Like you were never gone**  

 **You were never gone**  

  

  

They fell on the floor still in each other’s arms, sobbing and just trying to cherish this moment as long as possible. 

  

“I thought I would have never seen you again” 

“We always find our way back to each other, right?” Alec looked at his man with a trembling smile and wet eyes. 

  

Suddenly, Alec heard Isabelle inhaling a breath “By the angel Magnus” 

Alec broke the hug to look at Magnus, his bright smile disappearing immediately: he noticed bruises all over his boyfriend’s face, some cuts on his lower lip and dried blood here and there. 

On his neck, the damned runed carved collar stood, marking his skin with burned runes while under it, a fresh, palpitating red agony rune had been marked. 

His clothes were ripped in many points, showing even more colorful bruises on his chest and abdomen, some yellow and old some new, big and deep purple; Alec immediately knew that probably the giant purple bruise on his right side meant broken ribs. 

His wrists were caged in a pair of handcuffs – runed too – paled into the floor; probably to avoid his magic flowing out. 

“I’m gonna kill this bastard” Isabelle ran towards the warlock, crouching on one of the handcuffs with the stele in her hand, freeing one of his hands. 

Alec followed her steps, freeing the other, and then he did the same with the collar, leaving it falling to the ground with a loud noise. 

Magnus stretched his neck sighing in relief after a long time when Luke, with one of Izzy’s sword in hand, came to the door again. 

“Sorry to interrupt this wonderful reunion but there’s another horde coming” Alec got up helping Magnus to get up on his feet and began to walk when the body next to him surrendered after two steps. 

“Ehy ehy easy, Magnus I know it’s hard but you need to walk now, for me, we need to find Clary and Jace and get the hell out of here okay? C’mon”  

Magnus tried but he almost finished the strength left in him; he felt pain all over his body, even into his bones, and lastly, he felt the exhaustion of his magic for not having used it in a long time. 

But he also felt relief and a sudden renewed strength beginning to resurface thanks to having Alec back next to him, alive and  _oh, he didn’t notice the armor yet, so sexy._  

“I love this armor my love, you look like a very sexy angel reaper” Isabelle and Simon burst out laughing while Alec, cheeks red, rolled his eyes. 

“What?” 

“Before coming here, we all bet after how many seconds you would have fainted the moment you would have seen him” Izzy took Raphael again on his feet, eyeing Magnus smug expression and chuckling. 

“I bet Alexander lost a lot of money today” he turned to his angel, winking at him. 

“Leaving you both here suddenly seems a great idea” Magnus and Izzy chuckled again, followed by Simon and Luke. 

Magnus then looked next to Alec where Isabelle and Raphael stood, and paled; he stretched one of his arms towards Raphael, touching his chin delicately. Alec helping him quickly to let him hug his son “My hijo, you need to hold on okay? We're gonna be home soon, together” 

Their conversation was broken by the demon’s noise coming closer, so they got out of the room to see what was happening. 

The horde wasn’t only one but two, coming from both sides of the hallway, their loud cry filling the air. 

“Alec, we need your arrows here!” Izzy screamed flapping her shining whip through the hallway. 

“I- Okay Magnus, tight your grip and prepare to run” Alec adjusted their grip on each other and then took his arrows, his hand flying to his quiver, taking incendiary and explosive arrows. 

He shot them two times in both directions, making some parts of the walls tumbling down on them like a waterfall, then the whole squad ran into the road they took previously, trying to find their way back to the hall room. 

“Am I hallucinating or the walls are getting closer and closer?” Simon looked around carrying Raphael with him, Magnus looked at the walls answering the vampire. 

“Jonathan” Alec drew closer to him Magnus, away from the walls falling down on them and the dust that was quickly filling the air. 

“He’s sealing the rifts between the dimensions.” Magnus straightened a little his body to help Alec run. “He will control this whole world.” 

Alec groaned, a rivulet of blood flowing on his eyelid “Just what we needed” 

  

Suddenly Isabelle screamed as the floor behind her began disintegrating, making her and Luke fall to the ground; Izzy’s whip a fluorescent spent snake illuminating the hallway. 

Simon intervened just in time, taking Isabelle’s whip in his hand and saying to Luke to grab her; a second later, they were almost at the other part of the hallway. 

Sometimes Simon forgot the strength of his vampire blood flooding through his body. He left the whip and reached them with Alec – that shot an explosive arrow just in time as a horde almost attacked Izzy and Luke - and Magnus, trying to sprint and leave a good distance from the walls falling down. 

After a few minutes of running, slaying and shooting demons behind and in front of them, they came across a giant wooden door, ornated with gold runes and stars, the Morgenstern symbol; Alec looked behind him, seeing another horde of Asmodei closer and closer. 

“Isabelle open the damn door!” He took out an explosive arrow and put it into his bow, aiming it to the demons. 

As Isabelle opened the doors, Alec shoot his arrow; the explosion making all of them tumbling into the room behind them. 

  

Isabelle sucked in a gasp, quickly cut off as the doors slammed behind them, shutting away the explosive noise of both the explosive arrow and the loud cry of the Asmodei.  

Simon, eyes glued to the ceiling, simply thanked God that the ground under his feet was steady and the walls weren’t falling on them. 

  

  

Then he looked around, feeling all his relief washing away. They were in an enormous room, semicircular in shape, with a raised platform at the curved end half cast in shadow. Against every walls, lines of Endarkened warriors in red gear looking like blood. 

The Hall room. 

Isabelle let her eyes wonder around the room trying to help Luke to get on his feet when she heard Alec’s voice “Jace?”  

She saw her brother walking closer to his parabatai, who stood in the middle of the room with his head casted down, Magnus never leaving Alec’s side. 

“Jace are you alright? Where’s Clary?” 

He didn’t answer, he just flickered his eyes towards the platform that Simon had caught at the beginning, where two thrones stood. 

  

“Tell them” Simon turned around, finding Jonathan not too far away from them “Tell them where the Queen is.” 

He was staying in a circle of glowing runes burned on the floor and when Simon adjusted his vampire sight through the shadow, he saw Clary. 

Sitting on a throne, next to the empty one, her green eyes hollow and unfocused; her flaming red hair looking like a tamed fire trapped in the white marble and melted gold of the material of the throne.  

“Clary...?” 

Isabelle followed her boyfriend’s eyes and finally saw her too. Some of the strands of her dark hair were stuck to her face with blood. She looked fierce, and beautiful.  

  

  

Simon took an involuntary step forward and was immediately blocked by a dozen Endarkened warriors, “Stop where you are, vampire, or we will kill you” 

Simon staggered back shocked; he could see Isabelle staring wordless from Clary, to Jonathan, to him. “Clary!” Simon screamed but she didn’t flinch or move, Jonathan’s face darkening like his demon eyes. 

 “You will not say my sister’s name, she belongs to me now, and I will not share.” 

“You’re insane,” Simon threw a glance towards the others for help, finding them shocked and silent. 

“I'll take that as a compliment” Jonathan smirked and turned to Jace, trying to finish what they were doing before they were interrupted. 

Jonathan lowered his arms to his sides and held out his hand. “So Jace Herondale, do you renounce her to my keeping?” 

  

“No!” It wasn’t Jace; it was Luke. She pulled away from Isabelle and launched himself forward “Torture me. Do what you want to me, but leave Clary alone!” 

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “I am torturing you. All of you, some of you don’t even know” for a brief moment, he glanced at Alec and Isabelle, and Alec felt a terrible presage sinking into his heart. 

  

“She’s just a girl,” Luke panted. “My child, my daughter—” 

  

Jonathan’s hand shot out and gripped Luke’s jaw, half-lifting him off the floor. “And what was I to Jocelyn? Wasn’t I her child too?” something in Jonathan’s eyes shone, something close to tears. 

“You will stay away from my sister.” He let go of Luke; he staggered back, the bloody print of his hand marked on his face. “You all are alive because Clary wants you alive. There is no other reason.” 

  

“You told her you wouldn’t kill us if she accepted that throne,” Simon said, his eyes widening with fear and panic.  

He felt like in a film where the hero sacrifice himself for his or her friends and family, everything to save the world and he felt something in his frozen heart, breaking. 

“Not exactly,” said Jonathan “I offered her much more” 

“The world,” Magnus’ voice sounded like a broken glass tearing his throat apart, like as if he was swallowing a millionth of needles. 

“You’re sealing the rifts between our world and this one, that’s what this rune circle is for, you are no longer splitting your powers between two worlds. All your force will be concentrated here. You’ll be invincible” 

“If he seals the borders, how will we get back to our world?” Simon demanded; he was still blocked by Endarkened. 

“We won’t,” answered Magnus. “We’ll be trapped here.” 

Jonathan raised his chin and then turned to Isabelle. 

“Even if you would return to your world, you would find it on fire, covered in blood, the same blood of your friends and family” he smirked like a devil and something sinister shone in his eyes, something that wasn’t promising good. 

His hand took out something from his pocket “I think you will recognize this Lightwoods” his smile grew even more widely as he threw a little toy in front of Alec and Isabelle’s feet. 

A tiny soldier toy. 

Max’s favorite toy, a gift from Jace when he was little. 

“Max” Alec whispered the name with his hazel eyes glued on the toy, and Magnus felt him turning ice cold when everything clicked. 

Isabelle let out a screamed cry, falling heavily on her knees holding the toy tight to her chest with tears covering her cheeks, creating pale rivulets through the dried blood. 

Alec closed his eyes, clenched his jaw and turned his head to the side trying to keep everything inside of him; Magnus’ hand becoming his anchor. 

As Simon for Izzy as he held her tight to his chest; she seemed on the verge of breaking in million pieces and at the same time, she seemed on the verge of tearing Hell down with her. 

“You can thank the Seelie Queen for this plan, she suggested to attack the La institute while you’re were here, you know…for how you treated her after Valentine”  

Everyone was silent, only Izzy’s sobs resounded through the air. 

  

Suddenly, Luke moved forward again. 

“Clary” he took a step on the steps that headed to the thrones. “Don’t do this—” 

“I have to,” Clary answered, speaking for the first time. Her voice firm and full of sad feelings; everyone was looking at her. Everyone but Jace. He was staring at the floor, his eyes burning a little. 

“If I don’t, he’ll kill everyone in our world. He’ll turn our world to this.” She moved her eyes around her, trying to point Edom and all the ruins around them, trying to be understood by her family “It’s worth it. I’ll learn to love him.” 

  

“You think you can change him because you’re the only thing he cares about,” Luke closed his eyes for a second “but I know Morgenstern men. One was my parabatai, you’ll regret—” 

  

“You never held the life of a whole world in your hand dad” Clary’s voice sounding with tenderness and sorrow and Simon noticed, with his advanced sight, that her eyes were wet. 

She looked at her brother “I accept your deal brother” 

  

Jonathan turned satisfied to Jace, in his eyes a silent question which Jace answered immediately “Clary is yours,” he said, and stepped back. 

Jonathan clapped his hands excited “It is done! All of you. Kneel to your new queen.” 

  

Clary wanted to scream  _no, don’t do that!_  but she forced herself into stillness, silence; she watched as the Endarkened began to kneel, one by one, their heads bowed, their red gear making them looking like falling drops of blood. 

“Kneel, or I will kill you.” Jonathan locked his eyes into the squad’s eyes, challenging all of them. 

Magnus was the first to kneel together with Alec, and Clary felt her heart tighten; they just had found each other again only to be trapped here forever; Magnus, the man that was raised in this dimension by his abusing father; the man that had seen and suffered all type of pain and was still one of the kindest person Clary has ever met, the man that saw her grew up since she was four because of her mother. 

The man that was here, now, because he loved Alec, a Nephilim, someone that he swore he wouldn’t never have fallen for. 

it wasn’t fair. 

 

The next one was Simon, looking into Clary’s eyes as he kneeled; Clary felt his heart shattering at the look Simon was giving her, angry but forgiving because he was understanding her; her best friend since she was little, the other half of her soul. 

The rest of her family followed their gesture, kneeling at the feet of the steps. Jace was the last one, and a second after he knelt, she heard the glass of the ceiling shatter into pieces. It sounded like her breaking heart. 

“It is done. The rifts between the worlds are closed.” Jonathan smiled widely, turned towards the thrones and ran to his sister, taking her down from the throne until she stood in front of him. His hands felt like thorns around her wrists, caging her. 

He knelt smiling with a spark in his eyes, with the devotion that he reserved just for her, twisted and ill.  

The only thing Clary could see was the ghost of the brother she would never had. 

“Do you accept your choice?” 

“I accept it,”  

His smile grew wide, like a chesire cat and when he rose toh is feet hugging her Clary’s blood ran cold; in some other world, some other life, some other brother was smiling across the grass at her, eyes as green as the grass under their feet, with freckles sprayed all over his cheeks and chocolate on his face. 

"Hold me to show them we are one”  

Clary felt sick but she continued to play her role, for her family. 

She leaned toward him seeing something in his eyes, something different, something that looked like vulnerability. 

She laid her forehead against her brother’s, both closing their eyes; she then left a kiss on his forehead and then hugged him, putting a hand on his back, her brother laying his red-haired head on her shoulder. 

She put her free hand on Heosphoros safely settled into the belt of her gear. Her fingers curled into his hair, slightly trembling like herself, as she was trying not to break down and cry for the next move she had planned. 

  

“Ave atque vale” Clary whispered the words in the shell of his brother’s ear, one single tear running down her chiseled cheek as she pulled Heosphoros free, rotated it in her hand and slammed it into Jonathan’s chest, the tip piercing exactly the heart. 

Jonathan gasped, raising his chin and locking eyes with his sister in shock. He staggered back, the hilt of the blade protruding from his chest, the blood beginning to fall in dark stripes on his gear. His eyes were wide, and for a moment she saw the shock of betrayal and pain in them, and it actually hurt somewhere deep in her heart, somewhere she thought she had buried, erased and forgotten long ago, a place that mourned the brother he might have been. 

  

“Clary,” he gasped, and for a moment it seemed that the stabbing didn’t work, it seemed to just have weakened him.  

 _It hadn’t worked; it hadn’t worked and now he would take it out on her, on her friends, her family, on Jace._   

But then he fell to his knees in disbelief “I-It can’t b-be I can’t be killed n-not by any weapon under Heaven—”  

“That’s why it will work, because It’s not a weapon that was made under Heaven's fire. It is Heaven’s fire.” 

His eyes widened a little more and a second later he felt something burning in his chest; he looked down, seeing a flash of red, a spark...a fire. 

He gasped, understanding that she was playing all along, that she had planned this the whole time. 

He gripped the hilt of the sword trying to take It out when he noticed deep red drops on his palms; he brought his hand to his nose and lips, touching them and when he moved it in front of him, he saw blood all over his fingers. 

He was dying.  

He looked at her angrily, rose to his feet, and with a scream he pulled the sword out of his chest, all bloody and lighted by the fire.  

With one look he lightened it even more, the pattern of stars – the Morgenstern’s symbol – brightly visible on the blade. 

Clary staggered back, tripped over her feet and fell down some steps, throwing one arm over her face. He was burning like an exploding sun, in a spiral fire like the one she had seen with Jace the other day. 

Like a comet at her most powerful moment, ready to die a moment later. 

She could see Jonathan in a spiral vortex of fire, like the one Jace had erupted, consuming him in their bright light, until he was just a shadow outlined by it. 

Simon wrapped Isabelle to protect her from the fire, Luke doing the same with Raphael as Alec with Magnus, giving the scene his winged back to protect better the warlock. 

  

Clary closed her eyes, turning her face to one side trying to protect her eyes. 

Her mind raced back through the moment when she had walked through the flames to help Jace controlling his Heavenly fire, when she kissed him on the forehead and told him to trust her.  

And he did, he held her tight to him while she raised Heosphoros into the sky, their hands intertwined on the sword, while with her free hand she drew the winged hilt of an angel’s sword rune she saw in the red flames on the floor, letting the sword absorb all the Heavenly fire and the fire around them.  

The same night, after Isabelle, Simon and Alec were asleep, they decided this plan; Jace and Clary would have found Jonathan, faking the role of giving up Clary to him and then she would have stabbed him hoping that it would have worked. 

Clary said that it was a gift from the angel, that it would have worked. 

And it did. 

  

  

Clary opened her eyes at the sound of a loud cry; the Asmodei were screaming along Jonathan as if they were dying with him. 

A moment later, the fire burnt off and Jonathan fell down on the floor like a dead corpse. 

Clary lowered her arm and saw the floor around Jonathan had hardened into gold, the same gold that showed up when Jace lost control of his fire. 

She raised her green iris towards the thrones, finding them the opposite as before: where once stood white marble now it was burnt, when there was gold it was all melted into a shining river; above that, they were half destroyed. 

Jonathan was laying a few feet away from her, on his back; he turned his head toward her, his face pale and in pain, and her heart shuttered once more. 

His eyes were green, the same green as hers. 

  

“You,” he choked out the words, making more bloods coming out from his lips. 

“You put . . . the heavenly fire . . . into the sword,” he huffed a laugh “It was . . . smart” 

“It was a rune, not me” Clary had walked to him, kneeling beside her brother with tears in her eyes. 

He looked different from the person that threatened them a few minutes ago, the shape of his face was gentler, his jawline softer, his mouth had been deprived of its cruel and devilish smirk. “Jonathan...” 

“I’m sorry, for all of this” Clary felt something wet on his hand and realized she was crying “it’s our father’s fault, he injected the demon blood in you, you didn’t choose it” 

Clary’s voice trembled and as she finished speaking, she heard the squad coming closer to them in silence. 

Clary sobbed thinking how would have been a life with a brother that was never poisoned, with green eyes as her and freckles all over his cheeks as her and the same shade of red hair like her. 

A brother who could live, love and be human; someone who could have been her best friend, her other half of her heart, maybe her parabatai one day.  

A brother that never existed. 

A brother that only lived in her dreams. 

  

Jonathan’s breathing was beginning to be more and more spent and there was more blood flooding out from his lips. “I am sorry,” he coughed, making even more blood to spill out. 

"I know there is nothing I could do or say now that would allow me to die with even a shred of forgiveness, but I’m . . . sorry.” 

Isabelle looked away clenching her jaw, the loss of Max unforgivable for her even if the person who did it was now gone. 

Alec was looking at Jonathan with a sorrowful expression, a single tear running on his cheek for what he had done to his little brother. 

He understood that Jonathan did what he did because of his poisoned blood, but that didn’t erase the murder of Max. 

He would have needed time. 

  

  

“I must tell you one thing” the words came out raw and his breath was close to a rattle “When I die the Endarkened w-will rush at you. I-I won’t be able to hold them back.”  

He tried to swallow and then looked around, “Where’s Jace?” 

“I’m here,” Jace’s expression was angry and sad at the same time. Clary met his eyes and once again, mentally thanked him for playing along with her and their plan all this time without flinching or giving away some suspects. She knew how hard it must have been for him to let Jonathan think he finally possessed her, that she was his property now, to let Clary risk her life. 

She knew that Jace had wanted revenge so badly for the twinning rune, for bringing Clary dark side once; she knew how hard it was to look at Jonathan and realize that the bad part of him, the one part that he could have punished was now gone, vanished thanks to his angelic fire; so in some way, he did avenged Clary.  

Here, in a pool of blood and tears and melted gold, was laying another person, the ghost of someone who could have been, someone that hadn’t the chance of living a mundane life as Clary. 

A person who hadn’t the chance of being human and that now, never would. 

“Take Phaesphoros and-” Jonathan coughed, spilling some blood on his gear “destroy the cup hidden in my throne with it, throw it into the ring of runes“ 

Simon watched as Jace climbed the stairs, took Phaesphoros laying a few feet away from the squad and then leaded towards Jonathan’s destroyed throne: inside of it, there was the Mortal Cup, the object that created the Endarkened Shadowhunters that now, were watching the scene frozen, like tiny soldiers waiting for a command. 

Alec followed Jace’s movements as the boy then walked back, surpassed them and reached the ring of runes glowing on the floor. 

He didn’t say a single word, because he didn’t need them; Jace knew exactly what to do, he and Clary were the only ones to really know Jonathan. 

Jace crossed the ring of runes, put the infernal instrument in the middle of the circle and then concentrated deep enough to let his Heavenly fire pouring out of his hands, the melting golden fire transferring into the sword. 

As the Endarkened understood what Jace was going to do, they began moving faster and faster to avoid the boy to complete his mission;  

Alec was already loading explosive arrows but just as the Endarkened reached the circle, being an inch away from Jace, in one swift move he stabbed the cup, completely destroying it in a bubble of light. 

The light erupting from Jace and the sword, blasted every single Endarkened around him and even a few asmodei that were flying above them. 

They melted away exactly like it happened with Jonathan’s dark side, like the burnt thrones where Clary faked her role just minutes ago. 

They fell on the ground like black dust, as if they were millions of dead stars, as if they were a bunch of angels falling from Heaven losing their wings in the process. 

  

  

Luke turned away and for the second time in these days, he thanked Raziel for saving his sister when Jonathan attacked the Citadel; thankfully, for destiny or something like this, she was with him that day. 

A moment later the whole squad heard a loud, shill and aching cry that rose until it was a shrieking howl making its way into everyone’s bones; their skin trembling in fear. Outside, some parts of Edom were exploding with lava, the sky darkened even more and far far away, they could see the shapes of others Asmodei. 

The cry slowly faded and Jonathan answered their silent question “It’s Lilith, she’s c-crying her dead children, included me”  

Simon wondered if even demons could feel love, if they have a heart and in some twisted and strange way, they could feel something close to human emotions. 

“They’re all dead.” Isabelle was looking around the room, her voice still harsh with the previous cry and raw for her screams; her eyes were red for the tears she shared, in her hand, she was still holding Max’s toy. 

After a second, she retrieved her whip, taking it back on her wrist like a glowing snake. 

Jonathan gave a half bloody smile. “So, in the end, I did some good.” 

Clary leaned over him, urgency in her voice. “Jonathan, please. Tell us how to open the rifts. There must be some way.” 

“There’s—there’s no way,” Jonathan whispered. “I destroyed it a-and the spell I-it’s irreversible. all paths are closed, even the seelie o-one. It’s—it’s impossible.” a tear escaped from his eye, and Clary wanted to wipe it away. “I’m sorry.” 

The squad said nothing. the only thing they were tasting was bitterness; especially Clary and Jace. 

Clary, that had risked herself, that had tried to save the world being the only person who would have paid. 

And now, they were all trapped here. 

Clary looked at her brother and got lost in his eyes to a moment when they were alone in Paris, drinking hot chocolate not so long ago; she remembered a piece of dialogue between them, Jonathan’s words like blades in her already breaking and bleeding heart. 

 _The way you and the Lightwoods took me in, it made me want to be good; I didn’t want to harm any of you, just Valentine._  

After a moment, her brother asked her:  _What would have happened if Valentine had brought you up along with me? Would you have loved me?_  

When Clary didn’t answer, Jonathan lowered his head with a pained expression and then whispered: 

 

 _Do you think you can forgive me for the things I’ve done? Do you think the angels are capable of forgiveness? Especially for someone like me?_  

 _Clary once again didn’t answer, she just looked away wondering what the right answer was._  

  

  

Now, kneeling on the floor of Hell, she wondered again what the answer would be, if the angels would have forgiven him. 

Jonathan’s eyes fluttered closed. “You know Clary, a few days ago I dreamed of a small cottage with winged gates” he whispered and Clary smiled sadly, the wings were the Fairchild’s symbol. 

“You were standing under a cherry tree and there were preparations for a wedding; I had chocolate on my cheek and when y-you point-pointed it out, you b-blew out in a joyful l-laugh" Clary had now her eyes wide open, shocked with the realization. 

They had the same dream; in some way they have been connected the day she arrived in Edom. 

Clary let out a sob, taking Jonathan’s head in her lap “If parallel universes I-is a real thing, t-then maybe there is one where I was a g-good brother” 

Clary’s chest ached as she tried not to break down, his heart cherishing this last moments with her brother. 

Jace had returned while Simon and Isabelle were next to each other, holding hands; Magnus enveloped in Alec’s arms. 

They were all watching the last Morgenstern siblings' moments, their expressions a mix of different feelings, but in the end, everyone had a veil of sadness on.  

“For all my life I drew a prince trapped in a tower, surrounded by flames” said Clary, her face full of tears, eyes like moving water “It was you, it was the memory of you I never thought of having” Clary’s voice trembled along with her lower lip “Valentine filled your veins with Lilith's blood, and then he raised you like a monster; you never had a choice. But Phaesphoros burned away that side. This is who you really are, who you would have been.” 

He took a ragged breath. “I would have liked t-to be like this since I was b-born” he said, and his lips curled into the ghost of a bittersweet smile, "Ave atque vale m-my sister,thank y-you for trying t-to l-love me” he said softly, spilling blood at every word; and then his hand, the one Clary was holding went limp, falling to the ground with a thump. 

Jonathan closed his eyes and exhaled his last breath. 

Clary looked at him for a long moment until she completely broke down, mourning – finally – the loss of her brother, the person that her father ripped away from her along with the possibility of having a loving sibling in her life. 

Jace kneeled behind his girlfriend, taking her into his arms and caressing her red hair in a calming move while she held Jonathan tight to her armored chest. 

“Clary, we need to find a way to go home” Jace whispered to her but she was in a vortex of emotions, completely drown in sorrow and pain and mourning. 

Luke intervened, hugging her and talking to her like a father would have done, sweetly and understanding. 

A few minutes later, she stopped crying and rose to her feet: numb and heavy with the knowledge of her failure. After everything she had done, there was still no way to save them. 

They all looked at each other with their tired, dirty, bloody faces, too exhausted and drained and some of them, tortured to even think about the next move. 

Simon was the first to talk, a hint of nervousness in his voice. "Okay what do we do now?” 

"There must be a spell—Magnus—” 

“Magnus almost died; he practically drained all his magic I won’t let him die on me” 

“Alexander-” 

“No, don’t you even dare to think about it” 

Magnus turned around in Alec’s arms and cupped his cheeks in his bruised hands; for a second, Alec felt the familiar buzz of the warlock’s magic and felt at home. 

He closed his eyes, lingering for more when his lover talked again. 

“You know that there could be a way my love” 

“What other wa-oh NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT” 

“Alexander, if we really want to get back to New York, you need to let me do this” 

“There’s always a price to pay with him, last time a part of you never came back from Edom” 

“I know, but we have to try” 

Alec opened his mouth to talk back but, in the end, closed it, clenching his jaw while looking at the floor. 

“What are they talking about?” Simon asked the rest of the squad puzzled. 

“I think Magnus is talking about his father, he rule Edom” Jace answered turning to Simon. 

“Right, when he found out about where Magnus was! But...last time, Magnus lost his powers” 

Jace’s face darkened, his mind racing around guilty feelings;  _if it happened, it was my fault._  

  

Magnus took a step back from Alec, the Shadowhunter leaving his hand with wet eyes and hard lined lines on his face. 

Magnus closed his eyes and invocated his father. 

After he finished the summoning, someone appeared behind Magnus, a tall man dressed elegantly in a deep red coat, almost Bordeaux, with a golden design pattern. 

 _Well, we now know from who Magnus learned the fashion sense,_ thought Simon. 

Magnus opened his eyes and turned around; he could feel his skin shriving, his whole-body trembling with all the dark memories that resurfaced in his head. 

Asmodeus raised his chin and gazed in front of him until he spotted Magnus; his lips turned into a little smirk, in his eyes and amused and shocked expression. 

“Be still my beating heart” his voice wasn’t very similar to Magnus’ own, it was slower and lower; it was mesmerizing to listen, if it wasn’t for the person; he began walking with his cane towards Magnus, Alec ready to throw himself between them at any moment. 

“Is that my beautiful boy?” Magnus was frozen, but he was too exhausted to care; the others were watching the whole scene in awe and suspicion, both curios and terrified of what could have happened. 

“Or do my eyes deceive me?” Asmodeus smiled widely as he reached Magnus to hug him tight to him, his eyes gold-green and slit-pupiled like a cat’s. Same as Magnus’.  

Alec wanted desperately to put his sword between Magnus and his father, but he knew that threatening the only person who could have saved them wasn’t wise. So, he gritted his teeth and resisted. 

  

Asmodeus separated himself from his son and took a look, his brows instantly furrowing in rage; he brought his left hand on Magnus’ chin, raising it and moving his face to both sides, inspecting his bruised skin and his runed neck. 

“Who did this to you?” Asmodeus glanced at Alec, who didn’t move an inch from Magnus’ side. 

Alec only reaction was to stand still, looking fierce and absolutely not terrified. 

“It was Jonathan Morgenstern” Asmodeus snapped his eyes away from Alec to his son, a faked annoyed expression on his face “Is he dead?” 

“Yes father” 

“That insolent bitch’s son” he paced slowly in front of Alec and Magnus and Jace noticed that his voice sounded angry; for a prince of hell, it was never good news. 

“I should have started a war the moment Lilith touched you weeks ago” Clary’s eyes widened a little, understanding what Magnus’ father was saying. 

In a twisted way, Asmodeus loved Magnus, the same way Lilith loved her brother. 

Both ready to start a war the moment someone dared to touch their sons; If Jonathan was still alive and for some reason would have met Asmodeus with Magnus in this condition, Hell would have collapsed with Asmodeus’ rage. 

  

Magnus was trying not to fall into the words of his father; his love was twisted, dark and rotten. 

In some ways, he loved him, but it was toxic and corrupted. 

  

“So, why did you call me? The thrones made you come to your senses?” 

“What?” 

“You know, for what I’ve been asking you for centuries, to rule beside me and being the most powerful warlock alive, forever” Asmodeus smirked licking his lower lip “Or you know, for banishing the only person who ever truly cared for you” 

“Do you even listen to what you say?” 

“I plucked you from obscurity, from poverty, from living on the streets and turned you into the man you are today-”   
“— I am the man I’m today because I finally saw you for what you really are: A Prince of Hell”   
“You didn’t seem to mind at the time”   
“I didn’t know any better! There isn’t a single thing about our years together that doesn’t make my skin crawl.” 

“—Say what you will about the time we spent together, but you have to admit, you enjoyed every minute of it-”   
“—I was an orphan child!” 

“Your mother would be ashamed of rejecting help like the one I offered you” 

“The same mother you raped and murdered?” this isn’t how it was supposed to go this meeting, this way they would have never escaped. 

“She was a willing little piece, I assure you,” said Asmodeus, and Magnus snapped his head towards his father, flashing his cat eyes at him, filled with an indomitably wrath.  

Clary felt a wave of shock at seeing how it was actually possible to do that to Magnus, to hurt him with sharpened hit about his family. It had been so long, and he was always so calm when he talked about it. 

But then, Clary thought, maybe your parents could always hurt you, no matter how old you were; because they grow you and know which spot hit to make you crumble to the floor. 

  

When Alec noticed his boyfriend’s fingertips glowing with magic, he quickly activated their alliance rune and then the calm rune; Magnus, feeling his heart slowing down a little suddenly, glanced at Alec, seeing his Steele lighted. 

Magnus gave him a thankful smile and collected himself, straightening his back in a fierce posture, like the son of the prince of hell he was, challenging his father. 

“You know why I called you so, let’s cut to this part” said Magnus. “You can open a portal, and we need this to go back to New York” 

“Why don’t you do it yourself? You can do it” 

“Not in this condition” 

Asmodeus pondered about it, gently caressing his cane, with a smirk on his lips. 

The same smirk he had when he took his powers away; Magnus whole body was tensed; he knew what it meant that smirk. 

“It’ll cost you.” that was it, the thing Magnus feared to hear. 

He sighed lowering his head, his eyes locked on the marble floor under him.  

“I know what you want,” Jace looked at the warlock with terrified eyes, “And you can have it. But you must swear that you will send all my friends back to the New York Institute, all of them, or I’ll destroy you” 

Whatever he meant, he meant bad things to Magnus and after what they’ve been through, after he watched Alec dying day per day after the love of his life first losing his powers and then getting kidnapped, he wasn’t willing to watch this happening again. 

Alec’s hazel eyes were so wide that the iris color had disappeared, his expression was pure terror and panic.  

He was snapped out of his thoughts when Asmodeus almost reached Magnus; in a second, his right hand unsheathed his sword, placing it between Asmodeus’ hand and Magnus. 

The rest of the squad gasped at the sudden change in the situation, fearing the worst. 

“Touch him and I swear on Raziel that I’ll carve you heart out, If you still have one“ 

Asmodeus’s brow raised surprised at the courage of this Nephilim to challenging him into his house; he was a little irritated, but mostly amused. 

“There is a time,” said Asmodeus, “when we must all return to live in the houses of our fathers. Now is Magnus’s time.” 

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Simon and the others were all mouth opened, in silent shock; Simon wanted desperately to burst out laughing while clapping and whistling at Alec like a fangirl. 

Alec turned towards Magnus, and Isabelle noticed how – even with his brother’s façade - his hands were trembling when he turned towards his lover, how his fingers moved frantically to grab Magnus clothes, how much his eyes were scared. 

“Magnus you can’t do this, please, I lost you twice in this stupid realm, don’t make me lose you a third time” 

Magnus couldn't hold Alec’s gaze anymore “He needs me to power up” 

“What do you mean?” 

Asmodeus answered for his son, calmly, clearly enjoying their suffering. 

“It takes great energy to fuel a realm, especially now that all of you, Jonathan included, destroyed half of my home and its population...immortal life is the best of all.”  

  

“You want to take his life?” Clary asked. “That'’s cruel even for a demon, at least Lilith wanted her child to live” 

Asmodeus laughed. “I do not plan to kill Magnus. That would be silly if I wanted his power don’t you think? It’s a freely given life I want, an immortal life, one with infinite power...it will help me fuel my realm.” 

Alec snapped his head back at Magnus, who was torturing his already tortured hands. “He wants to take your immortality?” 

“Yes” Magnus said, voice extremely tired and discomforted. 

“But—you’d survive? Just not be immortal anymore?” Alec looked on the verge of crying and shattering in millions of pieces, and Isabelle, next to Clary, was in the same condition: she couldn’t help feeling a never-ending sadness for them. 

Especially remembering the reason Alec and Magnus had fought weeks ago, before the first time Magnus went to hell. 

Alec never wanted to take Magnus’ immortality, he just had a crisis over it, thinking that one day, he would have been just another memento in Magnus’ box; if he would have been just an object in his long, immortal life. 

After Magnus lost his immortality it was Alec who went behind Magnus’ back to give it back to him, summoning Asmodeus. 

“My immortality would be gone,” Magnus said. “All the years of my life would crush on me all at once, or slowly that depends on my father’s will.” he sighed “I would be unlikely to survive it Alexander, sooner or later, I would die” 

“You can’t,” Alec said, and his broken voice made the whole squad lower his eyes trying to capturing their tears “He said ‘a life given willingly.’ Say no. Please, Magnus” 

Magnus raised his head and looked at Alec; it was a look that made Clary flush and glance away, Jace closing his eyes at the sacrifice, Isabelle letting her tears escape down her cheek and Simon looking completely devastated. 

It reminded, to Simon, all the greatest love tragedies he studied in English class, they were the definition of star-crossed lovers.  

And knowing both of them, he hated it. 

  

Magnus cupped one of Alec’s cheek so delicately, with so much love in it, the love deserved just for his Nephilim mixed with despair and sadness.  

“If I do, we all remain here; we’ll die anyway.” 

“Okay let me die with you at least” 

Clary heard her little heart break for them, for Alec, a Nephilim who was willing to stay in Edom just to die at his soulmate’s side, breaking all Clave’s rules, all the rules he was meant to follow growing up. 

“Alexander, please” 

Magnus had his cat eyes wet, silent tears falling like luminescent pearls on his Indonesian lineage. 

“None of us would give up your life to save ours.” 

Magnus glanced around at the faces of his family, dirty, exhausted, blood, with their armor broken in different spots, suffering from the dust and the fight and all the challenges they had to endure in this realm just to find him, Luke and Raphael. 

Clary saw how Magnus’s face muted as he realized that Alec was right. None of them would give up his life to save theirs. 

“I’ve lived a long time,” Magnus said. “And it doesn’t feel like enough. I want to continue living, mostly because of you my love, for the future we’ve been dreaming weeks ago with Madzie. I have never wanted to live so much as this past year with you. I never wanted to have more with anyone before you Alexander, I’ve waited my entire life for you” 

  

Alec looked as if someone had sucked all his life; his face was the mask of a man who was completely destroyed. “We’ll die together,” he said. “Let me stay-” 

“You have to go back. You have to go back to the world, change it, like we always dreamed to do, do it for me” 

“I don’t want the world if you’re not a part of it!” Alec screamed letting a tear drawing a path through the blood; Magnus closed his eyes, a painful twitch in his expression, as if the words almost hurt. 

Asmodeus watched as they spoke, his usual smirk persistent on his lips and Clary remembered that demons fed on human emotions—fear and joy and love and pain. Most of all, pain. 

“You can’t stay with me,” Magnus said after a pause. “I made my choice” 

"it’s a small price to pay if in the end we’ll save everyone you love isn’t it?” 

“Not everyone I love,” Alec whispered, and Clary felt her eyes burning and hurting from the effort of keeping her tears at bay. 

She had tried so hard to be the one who in the end, would have paid the price. She fucking tried, planning all of it with Jace, the sword, the Heavenly fire. 

It was not fair that Magnus ended up sacrificing himself once again; Magnus, that bleed for them so many freaking times; Magnus, the one who probably had suffered the most between them in his hundredth years of life. 

Magnus, who was willing to stay forever in the place where he was abused if it meant they, especially Alec, would have been safe in New York again. 

When Clary snapped out of her thoughts, she saw them cupping each other’s cheeks in their hands, as if they were holding the entire universe in them; they poured everything into the kiss, all the love, desperation, tenderness, passion and sadness; like it was the last one they would have shared for the rest of their lives. 

A moment later Magnus took a step back, his hands tightening around Alec’s biceps one last time while he began to surpass the Nephilim. 

“All right,” Magnus said, and Simon could tell he was tense like a chord, his eyes spent and surrendered as if he were about to throw his body onto a pyre, like a modern Daenerys. “Take me. I give you my life. I am—” 

Magnus didn’t finish as Simon, who had watched in silence until this very last moment, decided to interrupt him. 

He stepped forward, fierce and proud in his winged armor like the warrior he was. 

“I am willing.” 

Asmodeus’s eyebrows shot up. “What?” 

In a second, the card turned upside down, putting Isabelle at his brother’s place. 

She paled and screamed, “No, Simon, don't you fucking dare!” but Simon went on, his back straight, his chin lifted. 

“I also have an immortal life, Magnus isn’t the only one. Take mine; take my immortality.” 

Asmodeus smirk grew even wider, his eyes suddenly shining dangerously. “Lilith told me of you. The famous day lighter that banished her here again! You carry the power of the sun in your veins. Sunlight and eternal life, that is a power everyone crave.” 

“Yes,” Simon said. “but not me” 

Clary felt her lungs tightening in a painful way, she paled and at the same time wanted to throw up. 

Isabelle rushed to Simon, trying frantically to shut him up even if it was a heroic gest; she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him just after two weeks of being a couple. 

But Simon already chose; she couldn’t do anything to stop him, he was doing it even for her. 

“Please Simon, Simon!-” he surpassed her panicking girlfriend, moving in front of the prince of hell under Alec and Magnus shocked eyes. 

“If you want to take my immortality instead of Magnus’s, then I give it to you. I am—” 

“Simon no!” Clary said, but it was already too late. 

“I am willing,” he finished, clenching his jaw, thinking :  _I’ve said it. It’s done._  

“Simon...” said Magnus, in a voice of terrible sadness, wrapped in Alec’s arms. He closed his eyes in pure sorrow. 

“I’m only seventeen,” Simon began, turning to his friends “If he takes my immortality, I won’t die here. I never wanted immortality, I never wanted to be a vampire, I never wanted any of this. I wasn’t meant to be this” 

“But you’re an undead” There were tears in Isabelle’s eyes. “If Asmodeus takes your immortality, then you’ll be a corpse, Simon. You would die” 

Asmodeus made a rude laugh. “I am a Prince of Hell girl; I can break down the walls between worlds. I can reverse the transformation that turns a human to a vampire. I can make his heart beat again. He would live or his sacrifice would be useless” 

“But why would you do that?” Clary said, bewildered. “You’re a demon. You don’t care—” 

“I don’t care. But I want, pain is food for me” said Asmodeus grinning like a predator. “There is one more thing I want from you to seal the deal.” He grinned, and his teeth glimmered like the pearls. 

“What?” Magnus’s voice shook. “What is it you want?” Isabelle echoed desperate. 

“His memories,” said Asmodeus. “Human memories, freely given, are like food to us, demons live on the agony and the torment. Imagine then, having happy memories as sad memories ripped away by a person who will suffer forever.” 

He walked slowly until reaching Simon “Mixed together, the sour and the sweet along with an immortal soul, they are the most powerful thing for a demon” He looked around, his cat’s eyes glittering. “And I can already tell there will be many happy memories to take here, for you are much loved, right?” he finally settled his eyes first on Clary, his best friend, and lastly on Isabelle, his lover. 

“But if you take my memories, who will I be?” 

“Well,” said Asmodeus. “I won't take every single memory you have, what would be the most fun? What would cause the most pain to your friends, here? “ 

Asmodeus snapped his fingers and suddenly, a portal appeared next to him: in it, Clary could see the NY institute's ops center. 

“This is your way out.” He gestured toward the rift, which shimmered with his dark red light.  

There were bodies of some Endarkened, lying on the ground in pool of blood, and there were the Shadowhunters, stumbling, embracing one another, checking their friends and colleagues— they’ve been attacked and they were celebrating the victory after the battle. 

“Give me your immortality, and along with it, your memories of the Shadow World, all your memories of all your friends, all you have learned, all you have been and they will return home” 

Simon’s eyes were wetting; Magnus looked as if someone had stabbed him right into his heart, more than once.  

Isabelle looked broken. “You will forget us, even Clary” 

“Everything, his friends and family won’t remember Clary so we’ll be safe of them knowing his nature or suspecting” said Asmodeus. “He will have the life he was having before the whole shadow world discover. He will have his family back; his mother, his sister. Friends, school, the whole package” 

Simon was as broken as Isabelle and the rest of his friends, but he was firm in his decision,  _this was the only way out._  

Asmodeus brought his hand on the vampire’s ribcage, as if he wanted to reach his non-beating heart. 

Isabelle fell down on her knees, her expression broken as the glass of the ceiling above them, looking as she assisted at the second loss in her life in less than an hour. 

Luke, who had been silent next to a dying Raphael, lowered his head. 

Before Asmodeus began working, Simon teared his necklace away and threw it at Clary, locking eyes with her. 

Clary took it, giving a glance at the Hebrew religion symbol, and then raised her green eyes on him, feeling her entire being crushed all at once. 

She saw herself and Simon, reflecting in his eyes, running in the backyard of Luke’s house, climbing a tree and getting screams from a worried Jocelyn; she saw them at five, dressed like a pumpkin and a ghost for their first Halloween together; she saw them playing PlayStation in Simon’s room, cooking biscuits, at the Luna park, at cinema nerding about superheroes, laughing behind their desks at school, at their friends horrible concerts. 

She saw practically all their lives, all the years of love, whispered secrets and promises and shared dreams.  

A second later, Simon gasped, his eyes flying wide open; his hand went to his chest. 

“My heart—” he choked out along a trembling breath, and Clary knew, that it had started beating again. She blinked against her tears as she heard Simon cry out in pain; she heard other screams, more loudly and high pitched, she felt something salt on her lips and two strong arms around her. 

She realized that she was the one screaming, she was the one crying salty tears, she was the one who began walking towards him without realizing until Jace caught her. 

Shapes began to appear around him as all the memories were being ripped away; Clary saw, this time not metaphorically, herself and Simon as children, her all freckles and pigtails while Simon was all black curls and glasses on his adorable tiny nose; they saw another memory with Clary when happened the biggest snow fall ever in New York, they saw Simon throwing Clary into the snow laughing his ass off at her, there they were again, this time with Jace too, their first meeting. 

And then there was Simon with Alec two years ago, all grumpy and still closeted rolling his eyes every time Simon talked, Simon flashing red when he first met Isabelle, his transformation into a vampire. 

Simon having fun with Max, both Lightwoods not understanding his nerdy quotes, Simon and Isabelle under the same umbrella on a rainy day, Simon talking with Isabelle in her room, Simon admiring Isabelle completely love struck, Alec opening the door of Isabelle’s room and finding them doing things he never wanted to see, closing the door so quickly that he tripped on his feet and fell, his cheeks completely red from the embarrass. 

Simon’s hands curved around her face, kissing her in the cave two days ago, Simon looking at her fighting demons, powerful and strong, and so, so beautiful like a modern Wonder Woman. 

All Simon’s memories, his memories of all of them erupted into a shiny and bright white light, spinning around faster and faster until the dust around them began to form a vortex with Simon in the middle. 

  

Clary and Isabelle reached their hands out in the gathering storm trying to catch Simon “Please—” 

Both girls were stopped by Jace and one of Alec’s arm, the one who wasn’t holding Magnus at him. 

Suddenly, the girls felt the ground under their feet disappearing as they were being lifted up and whirled away into the portal, followed by Luke with Raphael and the dead body of Jonathan. 

Simon wrapped in his memories and the throne room quickly fading away was the last thing Clary saw before being sucked in the chaos of the limbo of the portal. 

For a moment she wanted to stay there, floating in this nothingness forever until she was dust, the same dust ruling Edom. 

And then the ground hit her, hard like marble. She coughed, trying to gain some air into her lungs and then raised her eyes a bit: she saw the familiar runed floor of the New York Institute, the bright screens of the ops center, the familiar faces of Lydia, Underhill and Catarina, all of them shocked and scared; Clary couldn’t blame them, they were probably terrified of their conditions seeing them all hurt, bloody, dirty, screaming and crying and with half of their armors destroyed.  

She then saw Jace landing on his back with his arms on his face and the other with a sword, ready to fight; she moved her gaze towards the portal seeing Luke rolling out with Raphael in his arms, one hand on Jonathan’s gear, they rolled until they hit Catarina’s feet, who paled like a ghost seeing Raphael with his throat opened. 

She then saw Alec flying out violently with Magnus in his arms, slithering between some shadowhunters on the cold hard floor until Alec’s winged back hit one of the main columns of the room wildly, making them both screaming in pain; the impact completely destroying one of Alec’s wings in millions of pieces. 

The last one to pop out of the portal was Isabelle; she landed on her back, her whip a golden line in the air, her hair waving as a flag in the wind. 

At the same moment she sat up to see if Simon was with them, instead she saw the portal beginning to close. 

She was still screaming Simon’s name, crying all the tears she had in her body; she tried to get up to run to the portal, to get back to the love of her life even if it meant staying in Edom forever. 

She almost reached the closing portal until two strong, armored arms wrapped her, stopping her movements and making both to fall to the ground. 

Jace held her tightly to his chest while she continued to scream and cry and wriggle in his brother’s arms, trying to break free until she stopped, completely breaking down. 

The silence of the others Shadowhunters seemed to break like a wave when Alec, bent over Magnus, screamed “Magnus? Magnus! Come on open your eyes, OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES MAGNUS!” he slapped him slightly on his cheek, trying to wake him up but failing. 

He turned towards his colleagues, the bloody around his hazel eyes made him look terrifying  “SOMEONE HELP!" 

Suddenly there were Nephilim running toward them, Catarina rushing to an unconscious Magnus while Lorenzo helped an exhausted and injured Alec to get up on a bed and then running to Raphael, trying to save him. 

Lydia and Underhill going to a weak Jace and an hysteric Izzy, Lava and Maia going to a beaten Luke and Raphael, who was fighting to stay alive. 

Clary then saw a blonde head coming to her with another shadowhunter, and recognized the girl as Emma Carstairs, the girl that helped them get to Edom. 

She rose to her feet with one of Emma’s arm around herself, walking Clary towards one of the beds the shadowhunters were bringing in the room; Clary moved her eyes around, noticing now Robert and Maryse, who looked like they haven’t slept for weeks, coming closer to a panicked Alec and a still crying Isabelle. 

Clary then remembered Max and her heart clenched painfully for them; they had lost a son and for days, they feared to have lost the other three. 

She couldn’t imagine how much wrecked they were inside. 

Aline and Helen then reached Isabelle taking her into their arms and putting her onto a bed, injecting the girl some morphine and a breathing mask on her lips, trying to calm her down a little. 

  

Clary, with Simon’s necklace in her hand, watched Isabelle with silent tears rolling down her face and thought that an angel had just died today. 

  

  

  

“I’m sorry Catarina, we’ve tried to save him”  

Catarina sobbed again, her tissue completely wet with her tears; she looked at Luke and Lorenzo and then at Alec, who was refusing to stay in his bed, and nodded to them. 

“I know and for this, I’ll forever be thankful to you” she looked at the people in front of her and as she finished talking, she broke down in another round of sob; Alec took her into his arms, comforting her. 

“I should tell to Magnus, he would want to say goodbye before the funeral”  

She nodded again and Clary heard Alec sighing deep, Jace next to them run a hand on his face, still very tired. “This could destroy him, can’t we wait a little more?” 

“He already asked me about him, I can’t hide this from him, he needs to have all the time he will want to say goodbye to his son even if he’s exhausted, he would never forgive me” Alec straightened himself, moving the crutch better under his bandaged arm. 

Lorenzo, Lydia and Underhill all lowered their heads in sadness; Lorenzo and Catarina tried desperately to heal him, but it had been too late. 

Raphael died less than four hours after they crumbled out of the portal; Isabelle, who just knew that morning, looked like catatonic since. 

When her mother passed through the hallway, Isabelle was sobbing into her pillow trying to take all of her wires from her skin; she cried for hours in her arms for everything: Max, Simon, Raphael. 

Three people she loved, were dead. 

  

Alec took a deep breath and then turned around, walking towards the infirmary where they have been placed in order to heal and rest. 

When Magnus noticed Alec and the others on the door, he smiled weakly at his angel; Alec looked at him; it hadn’t passed a lot of time, just a bunch of hours since their return but in some way he was looking already better, his bruises were gone, his major fractures too thanks to Catarina and the runes had been removed from his skin thanks to Clary. 

He had a lot of recovery to do anyway, the weight to regain again, the mental abuse he has lived, the torture of meeting his abusing father once again. 

“Hey there angel” Alec returned the smile to Magnus, trying to remain in control. 

“Hi love, how are you feelin’?” he walked closer to the bed, slowly and a little wimpling. 

“I’ve been better...how is Raphael?” with these words Alec’s heart crashed once again. 

He didn’t say a word, he just watched Magnus with a broke expression, his hazel eyes beginning to hurt as he tried to keep his tears at bay, red and with dark heavy bags under them. 

Magnus gazed at him puzzled until Alec’s expression made everything click. 

His face muted into crescent panic, his lips began to tremble while a waterfall of “nononono it can’t be, no no!” were falling from his mouth, raw and full of desperation. 

Alec swallowed and reached Magnus – who was trying to sit up and tearing away every cable and intravenous - on the bed, abandoning his crutch against the chair settled next to the bed, and sat a little behind him, taking him into his arms and lulling him, murmuring sweet words as “it’s not okay, but I’m here, we’re all here” trying to give Magnus a little comfort; trying to light some of his pain and weight on his own shoulders. 

Catarina watched the scene in Jace and Clary’s arms, her eyes puffy and red from tears while Lorenzo, in the same condition, wondered how much pain they endured in Edom and how much pain they still would have met here, at home. 

  

A few hours later, the Institute was surrounded by darkness; just a few lamps were on in the hallways, the only room enlightened was the ops center. 

Alec was deep asleep in Magnus’ bed, as Clary and Jace in the opposite one; Isabelle and Maryse were in the same condition, their faces illuminated just by the moon and the colorful glass of the infirmary. 

Magnus let his fingers wondering up and down his lover’s hand on his chest, his eyes locked on the ceiling above him. 

He moved Alec’s arm away delicately trying not to wake him up and then sat up. 

He put his feet on the floor, sighing and shriving at the cold hitting even his bones; he took the bar where his intravenous had been hung until his knuckles turned white. Then he got down from the bed, feeling all his weight barely keeping up. 

He gave Alec one last look, smiling softly at his angel, his warrior nephilim that broke Clave rules just to save him. 

Magnus arranged the blanket until it covered his angel’s chin and then walked out of the room. 

He walked slowly, feeling the pain in every fiber of his body, he felt it on his skin, in his veins, in his bones. 

He continued to put a foot in front of the other, involving a big amount of effort to not crumbling on the floor. He put the other hand on the railing on the wall, tightening his teeth for the ache. 

Magnus’s body went slightly limp, almost falling when two hands came up to help him with urgency. 

“Magnus, what are you doing outside your bed? You should be sleeping by now” Underhill’s gentle eyes looked at him worryingly, his arm circling his waist, helping Magnus not to fall. 

“Can you take me to the mourn room? Please” Magnus’ voice broke on the last word, his eyes already wetting. 

Underhill opened his mouth to say something but he knew that Magnus needed to see Raphael, he knew he needed to mourn him, to have this moment of absolute grief. 

So he took him to the mourn room, where the fallen had been placed for their funerals. 

They stopped on the doorframe, Magnus’ cat eyes spotting immediately his beloved son. 

Magnus walked in a haze to Raphael’s table, his eyes travelling on the boy’s pale skin, on his wounds healed by Catarina, on the dark brown curls tickling his forehead, on the Christian cross necklace around his neck. 

The warlock walked closer to his son, one of his hand flying like a feather over the white blanket on the dead body, until he reached the heart. 

Magnus couldn't feel a beat, and he wanted to believe that it was because Raphael was a vampire, but not this time; this time, his heart wasn’t beating because he was dead. 

The realization came down on him in a second, making his legs shaking; Underhill, who stood by the doorframe in respect and silence, run to him with a chair in a second, making him sitting down, giving a hug of comfort before leaving the warlock alone in search of someone else more fitting. 

Magnus raised one hand, moving some strands away from his forehead. 

“I’m sorry hijo, I should have done more to save you” his voice broke, chocking the words out of his sore throat; he couldn’t keep his tears trapped as he let himself breaking down while with one hand he held the right one of the vampire, his head on Raphael’s heart, trying desperately to feel the heartbeat. 

His sobs the only noise in the mourn room. 

  

Catarina sighed and followed Underhill until they stopped on the doorframe: in front of them, between all the shadowhunters and downworlders fallen in the recent attacks on both the LA and Ny Institute, Magnus was sobbing on Raphael’s body, incontrollable, desperate and so painfully that even Underhill had tears in his eyes. 

His boyfriend had been injured heavily but he had been healed in time, and he didn’t even want to imagine how it was to be in Magnus’ place, or Maryse’s or everyone who lost people they loved with all they had. 

He even wondered how the hell Magnus bared the bigoted shadowhunters who in the past years declared that the people he lost, people like him, deserved to die just because they were downworlders. 

Alec was lucky to have found a man like Magnus as the warlock was lucky to have found a person with such an open heart like his boss. 

It would have been a long way, but with each other they would have been fine. 

  

“You can go Henry, thank you” Underhill nodded giving a squeeze to Catarina’s shoulder and then left. 

She took a deep breath and then walked closer to Magnus, taking a chair and sitting next to him, gently caressing his hair. 

“Magnus” she breathed with her hand on his back, softly giving him comfort “Magnus he didn’t have a chance, you and Luke did everything right” 

Magnus sobbed again, his eyes sorrowful and angry “I shouldn’t have challenged Jonathan, he died because of me” 

“Magnus, Jonathan probably would have killed him anyway to hurt you” she brought her hands on magnus’ face, cupping his cheeks full of tears.  

Magnus locked his cat eyes with her best friend and the look he gave her destroyed something inside Catarina, he looked so broken and sad and spent that she couldn’t help but letting a tear rolling down to the floor. 

“He was my son, and I couldn’t save him, I should have protected him-!” Catarina let out a shaking breath, her lips trembling slightly but when she talked her voice was firm and warm. 

“You’ve done everything you could, but you can’t save everyone my friend” 

Magnus didn’t answer, he just lowered his head and began to sob again so Catarina took his brother by another mother into her arms, whispering words of comfort with wet eyes and letting him cry every single tear he had to cry. 

  

Magnus’ hand never leaving Raphael’s own. 

  

  

  

It was a perfect summer cloudy day, not too warm not too cold, with a comfortable breeze filling the air, making some leaves dance with it. 

The priest was an older friend of Lorenzo, a gentle old man with a pure heart; he was dressed in black as everyone around him, with only two white bands on his shoulders; in his hands, an opened bible stood, ready to be read. 

The priest waited until all the people were ready and then began to read an extract from the Bible, the book from the religion Raphael believed; Magnus was moved by how everyone had a little part in organizing his funeral the way Raphael would have wanted it; Especially Isabelle that looked like a shell of herself, completely wrecked. 

Magnus was wrapped in a tight buttoned up collar black shirt, the predominant color on all of them; next to him stood Alec, who was helping a still weak Magnus to stand up and walk. 

The warlock was snapped out of his thoughts as the priest, Albert, cleared his throat, welcoming everybody and telling some words about Raphael; at the end he preferred to let his religion to speak for him, as he didn’t know the vampire so well as the people that were there. 

  

 _“There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens._  

 _A time to give birth, and a time to die;_  

 _a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant._  

 _A time to kill, and a time to heal;_  

 _a time to tear down, and a time to build. “_  

  

Clary pressed herself to Jace more closely, her eyes glued on the wood in front of her; her mind racing to all the people that fell because of her lineage, to all the people who would have need their entire life to heal what her brother and gather had done to them. 

Of all the things that got destroyed because she couldn’t love them, especially her brother. 

Jace, capturing her thoughts, just held her tighter, trying to infuse in her some peace. 

 

 _“A time to weep, and a time to laugh;_  

 _a time to mourn, and a time to dance. “_  

  

Magnus’s head went back to all the adventures he had with his three best friends: Catarina, Raphael and Ragnor in all the parts of the world. 

He remembered how much tears were shared because of laughers, like that time a girl tried to flirt with Ragnor in the late ‘50 and Magnus and Catarina were on the floor with red cheeks and hands on their stomachs, or the time they organized a surprise birthday party to Raphael even if he was grumpy. 

In the end, he smiled and thanked them. 

The time that Magnus convinced them to go on a pirate ship, or going to a Venice carnival all dressed as Ragnor, the picnic in Bali, the hot balloon in France with the Queen, the plague and the war, the lgbtq pride march a few years ago, the time Magnus and Ragnor gave an heart attack to Catarina in the pyramids dressed as mummies, the Halloween's parties, the Christmas’ dinners they organized every year since Raphael was adopted by them. 

The joy and the pain, the fun and sadness...they lived them all, together. 

Now, Magnus and Catarina were the only two of the group still alive. 

  

  

 _A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them;_  

 _a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces._  

 _A time to seek, and a time to lose;_  

 _a time to keep, and a time to cast away._  

 

 

Maryse brought her white tissue to her eye, drying an escaped tear. 

It had passed five days since Max’s death; in that time, her other three children were still stuck in Edom along with the man she loved. 

She would have desired to go with them, if only she was still a Shadowhunter; the only thing that saved her was having people like Catarina, Robert even if they were divorced, and the Angel. 

She couldn’t feel happy that the monster was dead, because neither his death could have brought his youngest son back to life. 

She wondered how Magnus could watch the coffin where his adopted son stood without breaking down every second, at every word of the priest, every glance at the dark wood, every flower on the crown against the marble. 

And then she thought that even if Magnus was on his feet, alive and there he could have been on the floor, dead, and in another place with his mind. 

Luke brought her closer to his chest, trying to calm the sob. 

 

 

 _A time to rend, and a time to sew;_  

 _a time to be silent, and a time to speak._  

 

 

Isabelle was the person that talked the most in her family; knowing when to say things in a cryptic way, in a flirty way, in a humorous way and so go on. 

She had never permitted people to shut her up and deciding for her; growing up, she learned that some things is better to keep to yourself while some other times, some things needed to be spoken even if all you ever want to do is die rather than people knowing. 

She never shut her beautiful red lips from talking; she remembered a night, in Raphael’s apartment weeks ago, when they spent the dark hours talking about everything: her brothers, her parents, her addiction to yin fen, what she wanted to do in the forensic field, how proud she was for Alec, how she loved dancing anywhere she was, no matter the place, time or music. 

They had danced for a long time, until they couldn’t feel their feet anymore. 

 

Isabelle looked like a zombie, after knowing that she had lost her little brother it was something inside of her died forever; her beautiful face was spent and red from cry, her eyes lucid and wide as two coffee saucers, empty and locked on the coffin in front of her. 

Under her black eyes, two dark circles stood like as if a writer let fall two drops of ink on her skin, like it was paper. 

Her hair had been straightened and, on her lips, she had worn her mark: glossy red lipstick. 

As some sort of armor from other pain, she was armoring herself with the things she loved: make up and dresses. 

She closed her long black lucid trench and straightened her back, taking back a part of her unbreakable façade. 

 

 

 _A time to love, and a time to hate;_  

 

 

Jace gazed at grave with sad eyes, thinking about the words of the priest: A time to love, and a time to hate. 

He thought about all the little love he received when he was little, so low that he didn’t remember any happy memories until he was adopted by the Lightwoods. 

They have been his time to love, before Clary. 

The time he spent with Valentine had been his time to hate and it didn’t end with his death, but with Jonathan’s. 

All the mental abuse, the physical one, the tortures with his falcon, the coldness injected in his veins year after year, the lies about Clary had finally ended. 

The part of himself that still had some negativity, has ended. 

  

 _a time of war, and a time of peace._  

 

 _22 years._  

 _This was how long Alec had been fighting with himself about who he was, this was how long he believed he was wrong._  

 _22 years were his time of war: against the rules, against his parents, against himself._  

 _He never believed he would have the courage to come out and find the love he really deserved, and not the love he thought he was supposed to deserve._  

 _He found Magnus and with him, his war time had found his end; with him, had_ _begun a_ _time of peace for both of them their hearts._  

Alec held Magnus to him as they walked to deposit a daffodil – _it's a symbol for rebirth Alexander, he loved this flower_ – on the closed coffin, the white of the flower a bright contrast with the dark wood; life against death, the circle of life. 

Magnus looked at the grave, his voice like a whisper “Adiòs, my hijo”  

He then lowered his head, his shoulders trembling in Alec’s arms as the hunter held his head tight to his chest comforting him in silence while helping him standing on his feet. 

 

  

 

 

  

  

 

 

“We’ll return to the Institute, to prepare Max” Jace smiled sadly while looking at his parabatai who nodded in return. 

Behind them, Maryse was gazing at tomb, alone with her thoughts. 

Magnus noticed it and decided to see if she was alright, so he separated from Alec and walked with his crutch to her. 

“Is everything alright?” Maryse jumped slightly, turning her head towards the warlock. 

She looked at him, his injuries from Edom and the recent loss still visible on his caramel skin. 

She hesitated for a moment and then sighed, almost imperceptible “No, I’m not”, she closed her eyes for a moment, holding tightly her tissue to her nose, her lips shaking a little. 

“How do you do it? How do you survive something like this?” 

Magnus glanced at her, and in his smile and eyes you could have seen all his 400 years, all his loss, all his happiness and pain. 

“I’m very old Maryse, I lost a lot of people in my life...My mother killed herself because of my demon blood, my best friend, and not only him, died because of Valentine and then his son, a lot of the people I knew died in history events like the war. The pain never goes away, it’s always there and it will be always with you, you just-” the warlock curled his lips, thinking of how to say it “you just learn to transform the pain into love to give to the people still alive around you” 

 

Maryse smiled at his words, understanding them but she couldn’t help the feeling of sadness and angriness in her heart. 

“I should have protected him better; I should have taken him away from the Institute-” 

“Maryse you couldn’t know, it’s not your fault” Magnus repeated Catarina’s words and Maryse looked away fighting to keep her tears at bay, failing. 

“He was my youngest son, he didn’t deserve this, he still had all his life in front of him-”   
Maryse’s voice broke down, falling into another round of tears as he desperately tried to dry them with the tissue. 

Magnus took her into his free arm, hugging her; both of them finding comfort in each other's. 

“I know, no one deserved it” 

The warlock looked at the sky, thinking at Simon and its loss and how much him and his family lost in less than a month. He sighed, eyes closed. 

 

 _No one deserved it._  

 

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, sorry for the embarassing delay and for how much you waited, I got trapped in another serie I'm writing and I got a little lost.  
> second of all, I DON'T KNOW HOW I ENDED UP TO 17K MY HAND SLIPPED but I hope you liked it even if two special characters died PLEASE DON'T HEATE ME I CRIED WRITING THEIR DEATHS OKAY I'm still cryin tbh ahahah
> 
> Third of all I'LL GIVE 150 POINTS TO GRYFFINDOR IF YOU NOTICE THE 3X22 QUOTE OF SHADOWHUNTERS THE QUOTE OF GREY'S ANATOMY EPISODE WHERE A CHARACTER DIE AND LASTLY A SUPERNATURAL QUOTE okay I'll stop screaming now, sorry I'm very proud of this ahahaha  
> (ps I want to bring to your attention that the last words of Magnus to Raphael are. we'll be home soon, together, probably when my friends say that I'm satan they're not wrong lol)
> 
>  
> 
> So, the next chapter will be the last and I promise that it will be 99% fluff and happyness, just 1% of angst I promise u.u
> 
> let me know if you liked this and comments to ask anything or just talk or whatever you want to do.  
> See you in the next chapter! (spoiler: prepare the tissues because we're going to say goodbye, okay now I'm gonna cry again)
> 
> 💖💖


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